Firefighters survey the rubble of a Metrolink passenger car that was uprighted after tumbling over in Fridays collision. Rescue workers pulled the last body from the wreckage Saturday afternoon, and the death toll climbed to 25. A Metrolink spokesperson said the crash occurred because an engineer failed to stop at a red signal.

As the death toll climbed to 25 Saturday in the Metrolink train collision, grieving relatives of the dead and injured learned the nation’s worst commuter rail disaster in almost four decades was caused by a Metrolink engineer who ran a red light.

After nearly 24 hours of scouring the wreckage for survivors and the dead, rescue workers announced they had removed the last body from the crash site just before 3 p.m. Saturday.

The Coroner’s Office released the identities of 20 deceased. The next of kin of three others had not been notified and two men had not been identified.

Of the 135 injured, 45 were in hospitals with critical injuries, 40 were serious and 50 suffered moderate injuries.

“We were at the (January 2005 Metrolink) Glendale train crash. This is much worse than that,” said Jim McDonnell, first assistant chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. “The twisted wreckage, the sheer trauma of the two (trains) coming together.”

Metrolink officials said the engineer of commuter train 111 ignored a red light after pulling away from the Chatsworth station heading north. The fatal mistake put the train on a 40-mph, head-on-collision course with a Union Pacific freight train along a sharp bend on the route.

“We believe it was our engineer who failed to stop at the signal,” said Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell.

“When two trains are in the same place at the same time somebody’s made a terrible mistake.”

A warning call to train 111 from a Metrolink dispatch center – that was alerted to the error by an electronic warning system in the tracks – was answered by a surviving conductor seconds after the crash.

Saturday evening, family members were leaving a reunification center at Chatsworth High School after the last relatives were notified their loved ones had perished.

A Camarillo family mourned the loss of Aida Magdelano, a 19-year-old college student who wanted to become a social worker as a way to give back to her community.

The daughter of farmworkers, she was the first in her family to attend college, studying long hours at California State University, Northridge.

“She was very caring, loving and dedicated to the family,” her brother, Juan Magdelano said. “She seemed to appreciate our parents, all their hard work in the fields. She was a great person, a great person.”

Aida Magdelano was riding the train home from classes at CSUN, where she studied sociology, her brother said. She earned nearly all A’s in school, he added.

Among the dead was also LAPD Officer Spree Desha, a seven year veteran of the force.

Metrolink took out a full page ad in today’s Los Angeles Daily News, apologizing for the tragedy. Under the heading, “our thoughts and prayers,” the ad reads in part: “The Metrolink Family extends its deepest sympathies to all those affected by the tragic collision.”

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa asked local clergy to observe a moment of silence during Sunday prayer services to honor the victims and to pray for their families and for healing for all injured.

Villaraigosa and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger were among elected officials who visited the crash site.

“Having spent the night with our firefighters and our police officers, this has been a grueling night,” Villaraigosa said.

At a news conference, Schwarzenegger said there was no way to describe the accident other than as a tragedy.

“Maria and I send our prayers to all its victims and their loved ones,” the governor said.

It was the nation’s deadliest commuter train wreck since 1972, when 45 people died in Chicago, and the deadliest train crash of any kind since the 1993 Amtrak crash in Mobile, Ala., in which 47 people died.

When the Metrolink train ran the red light, it triggered an emergency signal on a control screen in a remote center, Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca said. Monitors there saw there was a failure along a double-track passing area less than a half mile from the crash site.

A dispatcher frantically called the train crew, but it was too late, Oaxaca said. The call was picked up by a surviving crew member who said the crash had already happened.

Tyrrell said the engineer worked for a subcontractor, Veolia, used by Metrolink since 1998, but had driven Metrolink trains since 1996. She said she believes the engineer, whose name was not released, was killed.

Tyrrell denied a KCBS Channel 2 news report that said the conductor had sent a text message to a group of teen train aficionados just before the fatal collision.